Taxes & the Sox

It's true...some things are inevitable...Taxes and the teasing Red Sox are two of them.
First the Taxes:
A recent article in “City and Town” a publication of the Department of Revenue lists some fascinating facts about assessed values and tax rates in Massachusetts' communities. The camparisons use "fiscal year" information from the largest residential category, the single family home. Below is a chart comparing the average tax rate, assessed value and tax bill over the past ten years.

AVERAGE SINGLE FAMILY ASSESSED VALUE & TAX BILL
FY Avg Tax rate Avg Assessed Val Avg Tax Bill
1995 14.21 $153,572 $2,182
1996 14.55 $156,159 $2,272
1997 14.76 $159,838 $2,359
1998 14.92 $165,050 $2,463
1999 14.73 $173,576 $2,557
2000 14.48 $185,009 $2,679
2001 13.67 $206,789 $2,827
2002 12.76 $236,229 $3,015
2003 12.03 $266,350 $3,205
2004 11.10 $307,417 $3,413

A quick analysis shows that the average statewide "assessed value" doubled in the past decade($153,572 to $307,417) and the average statewide "tax rate" has decreased in recent years as the assessed value has grown. The current year's 15.4% increase was the largest single year increase in the past ten years.
A future blog entry will list some specific information regarding assessed values and average tax bills in FY04 for the ten communities in the Middlesex North District as supplied by "City and Town".
Now "How about them Sox"! I think Pedro needs to cut his hair. He looked better and pitched better before. I am 53 years old. I was about 5 when I became cognizant of the baseball world around me. That means 48 years of waiting. Well as they say there is always next...weekend. Go Sox!

The Latest on Homesteads

This week's edition of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (Sept 13, 2004) has a front page story on a Bankruptcy Court decision that interpreted Massachusetts homestead law. It seems the homeowner had a first mortgage that was used to purchase the property, then recorded a homestead and then recorded a second mortgage. The second contained no language releasing or otherwise addressing the homestead. Now the homeowners are in Chapter 7 liquidation proceedings and the second mortgage holder wants relief from the automatic stay that comes with filing bankruptcy. The homeowners claimed that since the homestead preceded the second mortgage, the homestead protected the home from that particular creditor. The judge ruled that since Massachusetts is a "title theory" state, a mortgage constitutes a deed and since a new deed dissolves the existing homestead, the second mortgage holder is not barred from foreclosing by the homestead. The decision seems a bit confusing. If the mortgage/deed dissolves the homestead, it would seem to be dissolved for all subsequent debts, not just the new mortgage. But the decision seems to suggest that it's only the new mortgage that is outside the homestead's protection. Whatever. The important point is that many lawyers and homeowners ask whether a new homestead must be recorded after refinancing. From my non-scientific survey, I would say a slight majority of attorney's say no, it's not necessary. This decision seems to indicate otherwise.

Catch Up Time

You can tell that mortgage applications have fallen sharply. We usually record mail within two days of receiveing it. Today we are working on... today's mail. Recorded Land and Registered Land documents are scanned within two hours of recording. We have begun focusing on returning documents faster. Our usual return time is thirty days. Recently, this has increased to six weeks mainly due to summer vacations. Before a document can be returned it must be scanned, microfilmed and indexed. Normal document flow has four verification checks on imaging. Even with these safeguards, it still comforts me to know the original is in the building for at least thirty days. Also, during these thirty days the public becomes another set of eyes for us. In the unlikely event we miss something obvious the document is still available to make the correction. As I tell the staff, once an original leaves the building that's it. There is no getting it back (usually). I anticipate the return time will be back to thirty days in the next two weeks.

More on Electronic Recording of Plans

In response to my earlier blog entry on plans, I've already heard from an expert in electronic recording who tells me that filing plans electronically is feasible although no one in the country is doing it yet as far as we can tell. It certainly is an interesting concept, one that we'll continue to pursue. But I was really talking about something much simpler. My initial idea was to have an electronic version of the plan submitted to the registry in addition to (not instead of) the hard copy. Here's the rationale: the surveyers and civil engineers create the plans on computers. They print a hard copy of the plan on "mylar" a plasticy substance much like super-thick plastic wrap for those of you unfamiliar with it. The mylar version is brought to the registry and recorded. At the registry, we scan the mylar, creating an electronic version for our customers to use on our computers and over the Internet. This electronic file to hard copy back to electronic file process is very inefficient. Why can't we just get the computer file that was used to produce the hard copy along with the hard copy. That way, the electronic image on our computers would be much crisper and easier to read. Just a thought.

Mass Assoc of Land Surveyors and Civil Engineers

This past Friday I was the guest speaker at the 50th annual convention of the Massachusetts Association of Land Surveyors and Civil Engineers (MALSCE) in Plymouth, Massachusetts. (To be fair to MALSCE – that is, why would they want to hear from me? - I was a last minute replacement for the featured speaker who had a scheduling conflict). The topic was “what’s happening at the registry of deeds and the role of the Secretary of State’s Office.” Since the Middlesex North Registry was one of the first in the state to move from county government to the Secretary of State’s office, I was able to recount the history of what has happened and why. We also had a spirited discussion on the future of electronic recording, especially as it relates to recording plans. I suggested that we (the registers of deeds and MALSCE) form a working group that would update registry plan regulations and explore the possibility of filing electronic versions of their plans. The group seemed very receptive to that idea and were a terrific audience. On another note, congratulations to Doris Finnegan who retired from the registry of deeds last week and to registry employee Martha Fallon, who married Attorney Arthur Santos on Friday night. Finally, don’t forget to vote tomorrow in the state primary election.

Plan Indexing

Presently our plan index goes back to 1933. As we approach the completion of the plan re-scanning project indexing back to 1855 obviously becomes the next logical step. In the past we have tried to back index our plans without much success. As I understand the situation, in order to display pre-indexed Plan images ACS created a simple index consisting of a series of sequential numbers. We tried to change this index by substituting the "series" with the actual plan information. Surprisingly, this procedure created a second entry. One entry had the correct indexing information, but no image. The second, the ACS "series" with the image. Hopefully, a little tweaking by ACS will solve this problem. Once the re-scanning project is fully completed this project will move up on the priority list.

Good Plans

As mentioned in earlier blogs, we are cleaning up our electronic plan images. After a “long road” this project is finally coming to an end. Even when the project is finished there will still be images that are far less than perfect. A number of years ago the public used the original plans as an information source. As you can imagine some plans became worn from the heavy use. During the re-scanning process we did our best to fix damaged plans but, obviously, there is nothing we can do about a faded or worn plan. We made a list of those in poor condition. It can be viewed in our copy area. Some plans have dimensions that are so small you need the original to read them. We realize that sometimes there is a need to see an original plan. These plans have been stored away to prevent further damage, but can be readily retrieved with sufficient notice.

More on Formatting Standards

Earlier today we recorded a mortgage that made a compelling case for Document Formatting Standards. This particular mortgage was printed on a single piece of paper that was 8 ½ inches wide and 28 inches long with printing on both sides. It was folded in half, creating the appearance of four separate pages. But the print just ran through the fold, so when we tore the document in half so we could scan it, several lines of text were torn as well. The resulting margin in other places was miniscule, only 1/32 of an inch. Registries are now totally dependent on scanning to create the permanent, historical copy of recorded documents. With lax standards, we do a disservice to future registry users who will be forced to use records that might be partially illegible. The way to prevent this is by adopting and strictly enforcing statewide formatting standards. While the standards have not yet been established, they will undoubtedly include requirements such as white paper, black print of a certain size, signatures in black or dark blue ink, a three- inch first page top margin, one-inch margins elsewhere, and paper size not to exceed 8 ½ by 14 with 8 ½ by 11 preferred.

More on Document Formatting Standards

We recorded a mortgage this morning that had a top and bottom margin of less than 1/32 of an inch. Although it was four separate pages, when it was presented at the recording counter, it was only a single piece of paper, 8 1/2 inches wide by 28 inches long (folded so it appeared to be only 14 inches long). To scan documents of this type, we must tear them apart along the fold. In this case, the print of the mortgage provisions ran right along the fold leaving us with the miniscule margin I mention above. This is a prime example of why formatting standards are needed. The registries have the responsibility to create and maintain a permanent record of documents of this type, and that record is created by scanning. But many documents are created with no consideration of how they'll scan or how the registry will affix recording information to them. Formatting standards might include things like the following: All paper must be white, print must be black, signatures must be in black or dark blue ink, first page top margin of three inches with all other margins a minimum of one inch; reduced print not acceptable, 8 1/2 by 14 inch paper maximum size although 8 1/2 by 11 preferred. We'd like to hear your comments on this issue.

Sales Reports for August

The sales and foreclosure reports for August have just been posted on our website. The sales report gives you all properties sold for the month within each town. The report is organized by street address, date and sales price. If you want more information, you can do a search in our database, but most people are just interested in what properties in their neighborhood are selling for. I didn't realize how popular this feature is until we delayed loading the July reports until mid-August. There were many inquiries asking "where are the sales reports?" so we'll try to post them in a more timely manner as we have done this time. I was reminded of the importance of this at home on Saturday when I received a "now is the time to sell" letter from a local realtor that included "free information on properties sold in Lowell." The "free information" was a copy of our reports for the city of Lowell for the past couple of months. I was please to see one of the innovative ways that visitors to our website are making use of the data we provide.

Lowell National Historical Park

With all of the cookouts, yard work, and back to school shopping of this past weekend, it was easy to forget the significance of Labor Day. Established as a national holiday in 1894, early Labor Day celebrations featured street parades "to exhibit the strength of the trade and labor organizations of the community followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families." Ironically, the strength of the labor movement through the years may have diluted the importance of the type of union-centered celebrations of earlier Labor Days. Now, most people simply enjoy the holiday as part of an end of summer three day weekend. A great way to reflect upon the accomplishments of labor and to experience the history of industrialization and immigration in the United States is to visit the Lowell National Historical Park. Operated by the National Park Service, the Lowell park has many exhibits and tours that are fun and educational. For additonal information, visit the park's website at www.nps.gov/lowe/.

More on Standardization

A reader submitted an interesting comment on yesterday's blog entry which discussed the need for document formatting standards. To the person submitting the comment, formatting standards would be acceptable so long as they applied at every registry in the state. I completely concur. Without that type of predictability, what's the point of having standards in the first place? The reader also discussed the difficulties he faced because of the non-standard practices registries follow when it comes to returning documents. Some registries charge postage, others do not, and still others (like this one) require self-addressed, stamped envelopes. I can't speak for others, but I will explain how our policy came about. Up until the fall of 2001, this registry provided return postage service. Back then, employees in the "data processing" department would enter the return mailing address of each document into our computer system. This usually happened a day or two after recording. Sometime later, we would print mailing labels, affix the labels to envelopes, stuff the envelopes with the correct documents, run the sealed envelopes through our postage machine, and then stuff them all in the mailbox. In 2000, we spent more than $40,000 in postage alone. That doesn't count the cost of envelopes and labels, or the time spent by employees typing return addresses, placing labels and postage on envelopes, and stuffing the envelopes. In the fall of 2001, however, the gigantic and unforeseen deficit in the state's budget drastically cut our funding. Suddenly I was faced with the choice of either cutting our postage costs or laying off two badly needed employees. I kept the employees. And the return document policy we developed works quite well. Since the fall of 2001, if customers want documents returned, they must either provide us with a self-addressed stamped envelope or sign up for a no fee document pick up box here at the registry (the customer picks up recently recorded documents during his next trip to the registry). Documents that don't have an envelope or a pick up box associated with them are placed into storage until someone claims them. The system works great. Not only have we saved an immense amount of money in postage and envelopes, we have eliminated a considerable amount of human effort that was previously expended on the old way of mailing documents. The reason we don't just charge extra for postage is that any money we collect goes directly into the state's general fund. Our budget, which has either been level funded or cut in each of the past five fiscal years, in no way would reflect the extra money we took in. That's why we need the "in-kind" contribution of the self-addressed, stamped envelope. Sorry to make this such a long story, but I wanted to explain the logic behind our system. Other registry's might have different considerations that make our policy unworkable for them. That's why something as simple as a document mail back policy might be the toughest thing of all to standardize throughout the state.

Document Format Standards

One of the biggest challenges we face at the registry is how to scan the wide variety of documents that are presented for recording. They come in every size, shape, shade, and font size. With scanning such an integral part of our operation, processing these non-standard documents eats up a big chunk of our time. And the miniscule margins that are left on many of these documents make placement of the label bearing the recording information difficult. On many documents, the label must obscure printing on the original because there is absolutely no blank space left. I will be working with other registers of deeds to formulate clear, easy to comply with standards. I would like to see them take effect on January 1, 2005, perhaps with a one year amnesty period to give companies with pre-printed forms time to get into compliance. I believe New Hampshire registries undertook this process several years ago, so a fact finding trip north of the border might be in order. Informal conversations about this topic with customers have made it clear that there will be resistance, but our informal efforts to get the folks who produce the documents to be more reasonable in their formatting has not prevented the situation from getting worse. One of the chief duties of a register of deeds is to produce a legible and permanent version of recorded documents. Given much of what's now presented for recording, that's an impossible task, so I believe that the time for enforceable standards has arrived.

Where have all the wires gone... long time passing

There is a fascinating article in the technology section of the Boston Globe today. Philadelphia officials are considering turning the entire city into "the world's largest wirelss internet hot spot". Here are the mechanics. Hundreds of small tranmitters would be placed atop lamposts. These would have the capability of communicating with standard wireless network cards that are used in everyday laptops. The city is talking about offering internet access free of at a small fee to users. This would make high speed internet access virtually available to all. Philadelphia is not the first city to consider wireless. Chaska, Minn has been offering citywide wireless internet access for over a year. Philadelphia officials estiminate that the setup cost would be about
$10 million. This sounds like a small price for such a huge technological leap. I use wireless at home to connect to the internet. It is reliable and convenient. It probably won't be long before many more cities follow the lead of Chaska and Philadelphia.

Computer Start Date Now Back to 1976

Back in early August (check out the August 5 blog entry) our computer company modified the search program we use in the registry and on the Internet. The purpose of the change was to allow the search to ignore spaces and punctuation, a very desirable situation. Unfortunately, we paid a price for this change. Previously, the search completely ignored the “start date” when retrieving documents by book and page number. This was significant in Lowell where our name index reaches back to 1976, but our images go all the way to 1950. We could leave the default start date as 1976 (accurately reflecting our name index) while still retrieving older document images without changing the start date. With the “start date” field turned on, however, the only way you could retrieve a pre-1976 image would be to manually change the start date to 1950. Since many of our Internet users are not real estate professionals, we have found that simple works best, so we decided to roll the default start date back to 1950 which would allow all images to be retrieved without the user having to modify the date at all. While we realized that pushing the start date back to 1950 might mislead a user into thinking that was the coverage of our name index, we decided to try out the 1950 default date for a limited period during which we would gauge user feedback. We have now decided to return the start date to 1976, the name index start date. This means that if you want to retrieve an older document image by book and page number, you should change the start date to 1950. Sorry this entry got so long, but I wanted to share with all of you the thought process we followed in this situation. This is also an instance where user comments and feedback would have greatly assisted me in how to handle this tricky situation. Unfortunately, the only feedback I received was indirect and second-hand, so this well-intentioned but ill-advised experiment persisted for longer than it should have.

Homeowner's Insurance

The front page of today's New York Times has an interesting story about property insurance. In the late 1990's, most American insurance companies quietly switched from coverage that guaranteed the replacement of a destroyed home regardless of cost to a similar sounding type of coverage that would only pay the amount stated on the policy plus an additional 20 to 25%. While estimates vary, they all agree that most American homes are underinsured, usually by a substantial amount. One study contends that 64% of American homes are underinsured by an average of 27%. Perhaps one reason why this has not become more of an issue is that few houses are completely destroyed. (Today's article features a couple whose San Diego-area home was consumed by a wild fire in the fall of 2003). Nevertheless, homeowners have the responsibility to update the amount of their coverage. This is especially important given the substantial increase in real estate values over the past few years. On another topic, thank you to those blog readers who chose to comment on yesterday's posting. Please take a moment to read the posted comments and to add your own.

Bookin' It

Last Friday Register Howe’s blog entry mentioned the project to make indexes available electronically. Many of the index books are in deplorable condition. Some have pages that are falling out, ripped or seriously faded. This has forced us to take those in bad condition off the "public" shelf . These indexes are in the copy department but kept readily available. This helps prevent the loss of pages and further wear. We have tried copying indexes and putting them in office style binders. This only works for a short time (a very short time). The books just get too much use for this solution. Professional rebinding is very expensive. In addition our experience with "sending books out" hasn’t been very good. Most of the books we have professionally rebound do not last long enough to justify the cost. The arrival of electronic indexes will obviously solve this problem and others.

Latest on Old Indexes

A casual conversation with an old friend this morning launched me on a day-long research and development effort with our old indexes. To put it in context, our computer holds a searchable name index that reaches back to 1976. Before that, you're stuck using the grantor/granee index books. But since those books have been victims of 30 or more years of hard usage, they're in tough shape with broken bindings and loose pages. Since there's no easy, quick, or inexpensive way to add names to the computerized index going back in time, we've been searching for a computer-assisted alternative but have not had much practical success. Using the scanned images of the existing paper index books is the most promising approach and that brings me back to today's conversation. The end result was that we tried converting a few of the old index images to Adobe Acrobat documents with considerable success. More experimentation is needed, but I predict we'll have a practical, inexpensive way to search pre-1976 indexes within the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

Real Estate Fascination

I sold real estate for ten years before coming to the Registry of Deeds. In both roles I have found that people in general are fascinated by real estate. For some it's just curiosity about what a house sold for (especially the neighbor's). Others want to make a fortune using the get rich quick techniques shown on late night television. At some point in my life I have been guilty of both (no, I never bought the tapes, honest). For this reason I still find a little bit of statistics intriguing. I hope you feel the same. Associated Press is reporting that Condominium prices in Massachusetts hit and all time high in July. According to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors median condo prices soared to $269,000. That figure is an increase of 14.7% from July 2003. Single family home prices are up 11% from last July but down 2.9% from last month. Over all, home prices are dramatically from 2003 but seem to have leveled off in June and July. Whether these trends continue is the subject for a future blog.

Indexing - Veterans Affairs

Yesterday an experienced registry user asked for help finding a document from the Department of Veterans Affairs. He knew the document existed (he even had the book and page number) but he wasn't able to find it by doing a name search in our computerized index. Since the adoption of the Massachusetts Deed Indexing Standards back on January 1, 2000 (click here to see the indexing standards), that name should appear in the index as "USA Veterans Affairs." Prior to the adoption of the indexing standards, it's much more difficult to predict how that name would have been indexed. In our index, we have a 1999 entry of "Veterans Affairs Secretary of" and a 1999 entry of "Veterans Administration." Back in 1988, a document was indexed two ways: "Secretary Department of Veterans Affairs" and "United States of America Department of Veterans Affairs." This all might seem a little boring to those of you who don't make a living doing run downs at the registry of deeds, but for those of you that do, this is the kind of thing that might keep you awake at night. For the latter group, I have some suggestions. Become very familiar with the Deed Indexing Standards. If you spend a lot of time at a particular registry, try to determine if that registry follows the indexing standards. If the registry doesn't, bring it to someone's attention. For index entries prior to 2000, try to discover how the registry indexed certain names back then. Unfortunately, no one that I know of kept very good records of how indexing was done historically and it usually differed from registry to registry (sometimes it was even different within the same registry). Make maximum use of the search capabilities of the computer system. Specifically, our computer searches for what you've typed plus anything else that begins with the letters you've typed. So if you just type "USA" you'll get every possible combination of names that begins with the letters "USA." If the search returns too many results, then you can narrow your search. When searching, always remember, start with a broad search - you can always narrow it if necessary.

Today is my first day back from a week long vacation. My wife, who is a tax collector, takes professional improvement courses every August at the University of Mass in Amherst. I usually tag along because I love the area. She goes to school and I well...don't. Although this year I added a little work to my trip. Since Middlesex North will soon be doing E recording I took a class on Electronic Tax Payments. The course objective, which was sponsored by UniBank, was to demonstrate that doing business online is the future. I found it interesting that E recording and Electronic Tax Payments share many similar issues. Consumer confidence and concern for security are just two of these. UniBank sited the popularity of ATM's as proof that the public has taken the "leap of faith" to the online world. I sat with my wife during the class. Of course, she elbowed me every time I whispered to her "we do that at the registry".
Of course, no trip to Amherst is complete without dropping in to the Jones Library. This historic library has two wonderful displays on former Amherst residents, poets Robert Frost and Emily Dickerson. I have been to the library before, but this trip was especially thrilling. On display was the original manuscript of Frost's poem "Stopping By A Wood On A Snowy Evening". Amazingly, the masterpiece is written on a lined piece of paper ripped out of a composition notebook. After staring at it for ten minutes the librarian asked me to move back before I fogged up the glass case. I was hooked. Now I had to find the house Frost lived in when he taught at Amherst College. Success...It is a beautiful Victorian located at 43 Sunset St (the perfect name for a poet's house). I slowly drove by it... I slowly drove by it again...I slowly drove by it for a third time. As I turned my car around for the fourth swing my wife (the tax collector) said "let me out...you are going to get arrested for stalking and I'm not going to jail with you. My reponse is best explained this way..."Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I took the one "MOST" traveled by"...I headed back to the hotel.

Welcome to New Readers

Welcome to the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds Blog. For those unfamiliar with the term, "blog" is short for web log, an online journal about a particular topic - in this case, the registry of deeds. Sometimes we write about specific things that happen here in Lowell but often we discuss items that will have an impact on everyone who is involved in the real estate business such as electronic recording, changes in state-wide registry policies and proposed legislation. But this is the registry of deeds, after all, so some days there are no startling new developments to report. That's when the blog ventures into other areas. If you're a first time reader, please take a few minutes to glance through the archives to get a sense of how this all works. And please, we'd like this to be a dialogue, not a monologue, so take advantage of the comment feature. The Internet works best when it's interactive. We look forward to hearing from you.

New Look for the Blog

We hope you enjoy the blog's new look. The changes aren't major: a new font for the type, a different appearance for the "archive" section, and a place for a title for each posting. The new website is almost complete, as well, but some fine tuning remains to be done. The roll out date will be sometime on Monday afternoon. If you subscribe to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, check out the edition that comes out on Monday. There's supposed to be an article on our blog. The reporter asked if I knew of any other registry that had a blog. I don't. If you do know of one (or of any other blog related to real estate that might interest our readers), please send me its name.

New Website Design

We're redesigning our website. The visual appearance of the new version will be very different. The link to our database that most users employ to search for and retrieve documents will still have a prominent place, but the link will take you to the www.masslandrecords.com site. Once there, you just have to select Middlesex North from the drop down menu of counties and then you're in business. The reason for this change is that many of our users continue to have problems using the current link that brings you directly to our search page. There's something about the design of that link at the ACS end that just doesn't work for some computers (and since ACS hasn't figured out how to fix it in the past six months, there's little reason to think that they'll fix it in the future). The other big change is that the blog will now appear on the main page of the website. This should expose more readers to it and might make it more likely that more of you will use the blog comment feature. Other than that, we're trying to make the layout of the rest of the site more logical and easier to follow. If all goes well, the new website should be on the air by close of business tomorrow, so please check it out.

A Trip to Amherst, Massachusetts

Today I traveled to UMass Amherst to speak at the annual school of the Massachusetts Collectors and Treasurers Association. My class is called "The Collector and the Register of Deeds." The students in this year's class were particularly attentive given our early morning start time. I gave a PowerPoint presentation that showed how the registry's computers work now and how the electronic recording system will work. In my opinion, local tax collectors are prime candidates for electronic recording. They will be able to use Level 3 electronic recording which is a more sophisticated method than I've described in earlier blog entries (that's Level 2). Level 3 electronic recording means there's no paper document involved. Instead, the electronic recording system can be "mapped" to whatever software the tax collector's office uses to generate documents like tax takings. Using their own software, tax collectors will generate documents electronically and transmit them to the registry via the electronic recording system. At some point, paper copies may be produced, but it's not necessary.

More on Electronic Recording

Electronic recording has the potential to revolutionize the way local attorneys do conveyancing. In a typical transaction today, the buyers, sellers, and brokers all meet at the lawyer's office, documents are signed, and someone brings the documents to be recorded to the registry of deeds. A final rundown is done and the documents go on record. Only then are the funds released. Then it's a long wait to recieve the original documents from the registry. Electronic recording will make this entire process much more efficient. The parties will still gather at the lawyer's office, but once the documents are signed, the lawyer and her staff can complete the entire transaction in a matter of minutes without ever leaving the office. First, they would use their own desktop scanner to create electronic images of the documents to be recorded. Next, information about those documents would be entered into a secure, web-based user interface. Then, the lawyer would do a quick rundown using the registry's website which is continuously updated with newly recorded documents. If the title remains free and clear, the lawyer simply clicks on the "send" button and the electronic package of document images and data zip across the Internet to a registry recording terminal. The registry clerk will verify the images to make sure they are legible, will verify that the data that has been entered (names and addresses, mostly) is accurate, and will click the "record" button. Those documents are now on record. The attorney will immediately receive via the Internet a receipt showing the time of recording, book and page number and recording fee of each document. The lawyer will also receive an electronic image of the recorded document complete with all recording information on it. Before the seller is done telling the buyer which day the garbage is collected, you're on record with a receipt and a copy of the recorded document. The originals have never left your custody. Maybe it's difficult to envision this without seeing the system in operation. We're working on some modifications to our website that will include a PowerPoint-type presentation on the new system. Stay tuned to the blog for more information on electronic recording.

Electronic Recording is almost here

Electronic recording is following an academic schedule - it took the summer off. We had a lot of activity back in May, thoroughly testing the system and demonstrating it for some potential users, but then things went on hold. Well summer vacation is just about over and electronic recording activity has resumed. We hope to have the system ready for regular, live recordings around the 1st of October. There are really two portions of the electronic recording system: the reception function and the submitter interface. When we purchased the ACS computer system several years ago, we paid for the electronic reception function as part of the overall purchase, so that's what we'll be using. We've tested it and it works very well. It will allow incoming electronic documents to merge seamlessly with paper documents recorded the traditional way. The ACS submitter interface is a different story. This is the Internet-based program that users will employ to send documents to the registry. The ACS model is a generic, nationwide one that will probably work very well for big mortgage companies that send us bunches of mortgages or discharges through the mail. In my opinion, however, the ACS submitter interface will be relatively difficult to use for the average Massachusetts conveyancing attorney. I'll try to state the basis of my opinion in coming blog entries. The good news is that ACS will not have a monopoly on the submitter side. Competing programs produced by other companies will also be able to submit documents electronically (just like your cell phone with Verizon service can communicate easily with my AT&T Wireless phone). With competition, the market will decide which system works best for Massachusetts users, and that's the way it should be. So if you know anyone who owns an Electronic Document Recording Company, have them give me a call. It might be a great business opportunity.

In other parts of the county, property taxes are assessed and collected by county government. Consequently we get a lot of calls each day from people seeking tax information about particular properties. Up until now, we've only been able to explain that the treasurer or tax collector for the town in which the property is located is the person with that information and suggest that the caller find the telephone number by dialing information. That doesn't seem particularly helpful, though, so we are compiling a list of the telephone number of the tax collector's office for every city and town in Massachusetts. We should have it done sometime next week and will post it on our website so that everyone will have access to it. On another topic, we're starting to replace some of the computers around the registry. Most of the ones we're using now were purchased back in 1999 with money that was available for Y2K preparations. While these machines seem to work fine, most people in the computer industry suggest replacing computers every two years - three at the most - due to rapid changes in technology. We've decided to start replacing a few of ours at a time so our entire inventory of machines doesn't become obsolete at the same time. Regarding the older machines, our users have been kind in not complaining about the appearance (and feel?) of the keyboards. The combination of oily residue from the many fingers that touch the keys and the dust and grit that's constantly in the air in this old building make for some grungy keyboards. We're going to make a determined effort to keep the keyboards and monitors cleaner than we have in the past. Maybe this is one reason all the new keyboard are black and not the traditional tan - the dirt doesn't show as much.

If this year's budget permits will are considering scanning the 1131 remaining Recorded Land books. This would mean that all Record Land documents from 1855 (the year the registry opened) to present would be available to the public in an electronic format. The images will be accessible on the internet as well as the registry. The images will be retrieved by scanning archival microfilm of the books. The microfilm is 100' 35 mm, a medium which is no longer used. Even though we have the abililty to scan 35mm in-house, it is difficult and time consuming. We usually prefer to do work in-house, but in this case there is no question that it is cost effective to use an outside vendor. As with any conversion we expect a percentage of missing and bad images. In fact we are still finding them from the initial ACS conversion. This is not really unusual considering we have approximately 6 million images scanned.
If at any time you find a missing or bad image be sure to let us know. Feel free to call or email.

A comparison of some document recording statistics from July 2003 with those from July 2004 shows the drastic decrease in the volume of recordings and helps explain why the registry is so deserted these days. The total number of documents recorded in July 2003 was 2983; in July 2004 there were only 1671, a 56% decrease. The number of mortgages recorded dropped proportionately, from 1010 in 2003 to 514 in 2004. But the number of deeds remained the same statistically. In 2003, 134 deeds were recorded while this past month, 140 went on record. What does this all mean? Housing sales remain strong, a condition that should continue so long as interest rates remain low. On the other hand, the days of refinancing a couple of times each year are long gone.

Today, August 9th is the anniversary of some major historical events. In 1854 Thoreau published "Walden" (way before my time, but of major significance); In 1945 the United States dropped an Atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki (I could never understand why people always talk about Hiroshima, be seldom about Nagasaki); In 1974 Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign (like the assassination of John Kennedy, I find that most people remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news of the resignation. Me? I was in a restaurant. The salad was good, the steak tough and being young and idealistic... the news was great.) When Thoreau published "Walden" there were no computers. When Nagasaki was bombed the personal computer was only a fanasty in someone's mind and when Nixon resigned computers couldn't display a single image. Today we talk about the memory capacity of the registry's computers in terbytes (1000 gigabytes) and display literally millions of images. History always makes us remember how much the world changes. This is even more the case when dealing with a department like the registry of deeds that relys on computers.
I can't even imagine how much our operation will change in the next ten years.

At least half the registry staff was fortunate to have put in for vacation days for this, the nicest day of the summer so far. With things so slow, those employees who did work handled today's business with ease. I filled in at the Customer Service Office which gave me a good sampling of the phone calls and the walk-in customers using the registry for the first time. Three things form the bulk of that business: Mortgage discharges (both missing ones and those in need of recording), declarations of homestead (we provide blank forms, notarize signatures and record the final product) and PLOT PLANS. Each day we must get a dozen inquiries seeking plot plans. It seems that every time someone decides to put up a fence, add a deck, or build an addition, the local building department must say something like "go to the registry of deeds and get a copy of your plot plan." Sadly, we can't help these folks. We just tell them that the plot plan doesn't get recorded and give them a free copy of their deed as sort of a consolation prize. Although there's probably many good reasons not to do this (just ask a surveyor, if you're curious about what they are), I think attorneys should start attaching copies of the plot plan to the deed (in a sale) or the mortgage (in a refinance). There'd be no extra charge and the plan would become part of our records, always available to the home owner for whatever reason. If you have any thoughts on this topic, please try our "comments" link just below.

Along with the new feature that ignores spaces and punctuation, some other changes were made to the website search program. Users can now search by document type, so if you are interested in retrieving all the deeds recorded for Westford for 2003, for example, you can do so over the Internet. Unfortunately, this new feature might just serve to illustrate the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." In activating the new program, our computer company altered the way dates are recognized by the search program. Typically, they didn't tell us about this; we had to figure it out ourselves. As a result, the date range on our in-registry search is now more confusing and the ability to retrieve plans over the Internet was completely eliminated until we figured out what was going on. None of you users should be unduly concerned about this; it's more of an irritant than a major problem. Still, I find it very frustrating. Maybe I'll document this experience in a case study that I'll distribute the next time someone says "why not add this new thing to the computer system?" The reason why is that everytime you change something, the change causes multiple unintended problems that dwarf whatever good thing you were seeking in the first place. If you ever have to design a registry of deeds computer system, never forget the KISS principal - "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

Older index books are becoming a real problem for us. Because they're constantly in use, they have been seriously beaten up with pages curled, torn, and unattached from whatever remains of the binding of the book. Our computerized index only goes back to 1976 (document images go back to 1950), so if you want to search someone's name in either the Grantor or Grantee Index prior to 1976, you must come to the registry and handle one of these rapidly disintegrating books. Putting more of the index onto the computer system is a huge task. Back in 1996, we had ten employees devote all of their time for 15 months to such a data entry project. They added just ten years (1976-86). We no longer have the personnel resources to accomplish such a project and having an outside vendor do it is unaffordable. We are experimenting with a program that uses the electronic images of the actual index pages. This system would work much like the books do. Instead of entering a specific name in a computerized database, this system would allow you to jump to the page that began with a particular name and then view that entire page for the information you seek. You would then copy the book and page of the document you wish to view, shift to the standard computer program, and pull up that document by its book and page number. We will keep you informed of our plans and ideas about this problem. As always, we welcome all suggestions and comments.

The amount of the exemption provided by the Declaration of Homestead is being raised to $500,000. Chapter 218 of the Acts of 2004 was signed into law last week, but with the 90 day waiting period, the change does not become law until October 26, 2004. This amendment increases the exemption provided by both General Laws chapter 188, section 1 and chapter 188, section 1A (the so called "homestead for the elderly and disabled"). All existing homesteads will have the benefit of this increase, except when there is an intervening lien recorded. For example, if you record a homestead today with its $300,000 exemption, then have an attachment recorded against you tomorrow, the attachment will stay behind the $300,000 exemption and would not benefit from the increase. How the homestead operates is a complicated concept. I like to compare it to having a dog in your house: if an intruder wants to get in, he will, but more likely, when he hears the dog barking, he'll move to an easier target. Similarly, if a creditor finds a homestead on a property owned by a debtor, there might be a way for the creditor to bypass or pierce the homestead, but chances are the creditor won't spend a lot of time and effort trying to grab that property but will move onto another one that's not similarly protected.

Today ACS activated a new version of their "search program" on both our public and administrative computer terminals. This new program ignores spaces and special characters. Examples: If you search A B C Realty Trust (with spaces) you will now get the same results as searching ABC Realty Trust (no spaces) If you search O'Donald (apostrophe) you now get the same results as ODonald. We tested the new version extensively before installing it for official use. Obviously, the testing went fine. This is a significant improvement to the search program. It will make the system easier to use for both experienced and new users. An ACS representative has been assigned to the registry all day to monitor the new program.

We had a busy day at the Registry of Deeds on Friday (July 30), recording more than 800 documents. Numbers like that were routine last summer, but this year, we're often lucky to break 300 documents in a day. A couple of things combined to cause this unusual spike in our volume. It was a Friday and the last work day of the month (which is almost always the busiest day of the month). The Democratic Convention probably played a role, too. During the rest of the week, Monday to Thursday, the registry was deserted, suggesting that many avoided scheduling anything during the convention. One thing that did not contribute to the increase was signs of new life in the refinancing market. That's just not happening, although sales continue to be strong. On another note, the records search portion of our website was down for part of this weekend. This happens more often than it should. Our provider, ACS, just can't seem to figure out what causes these periodic outages of the website. While I appreciate your patience, I need your help. As soon as you detect an outage with the website, please send me an email. I'll use your emails as evidence to try to force better service (or maybe a more reliable service provider).

Big changes are in the works for our website.  We're working on a design that's much more interactive, that allows for more interaction by the users.  Look for the new format for the website, at least a preview of it, early next week.  One feature is apparent right now, and that's a new "comments" feature to this blog.  If you click on the word "comments" below, you can easily contribute your thoughts and ideas to the community of registry blog readers.  The comment box does try to get you to register with Blogspot, but it allows you to choose "anonymous" for the posting name.  You are welcome to post your comments anonymously, but we'd also appreciate your leaving your name.  To do so without the hassle of registering, just select the anonymous posting option, but add your name at the end of your text.  This feature allows you to make comments upon comments, as well, so we should be able to construct some interesting dialogues.  We look forward to hearing from you. 

The Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported this week that the housing market in Massachusetts is still going strong. Amazingly, the average sale price in the state has risen to $360,000. Single family home sales are up 15% over last June and Condominiums are up a staggering 42% with an average price of $265,000. Condo’s have once again become a first time buyer magnet. I saw something similar happen in the mid eighties when I worked as a Real Estate Broker. Buyers were willing to pay more and more for Condo’s partly because their value increased so rapidly . Many investors also entered the Condo market. The philosophy was “buy high, sell higher”. They were great equity builders. It wasn’t long before the price of a Condominium exceeded the price of a small Cape or Ranch. As you would expect, this led to a correction in the market place. Condo prices sank like a cannon ball. It didn’t end there. As condo values plunged, first time Condo buyers became financially trapped. If they sold, they would lose money or break even at best. This diminished the pool of homeowners that could  “buy up”. The effect rippled through the entire real estate market... I remember sitting in the kitchen of a potential Condominium seller explaining a market analysis to him. Suddenly, a huge moving truck pulled up to a Garden Style Condo across the way from his. He looked out the window, turned to me and said in a serious voice “looks like someone is escaping”...  This is not an opinion of what I think will happen in today’s market, it is more my recollection of what happened then.  Of course, every economic market is different, and no one knows for sure what will happen in this one.  

The entire real estate market must be on vacation this week.  Apparently, everyone involved heeded the warnings of road closings and gridlock and went on vacation, because not much is happening at the registry, either at the Cambridge satellite office or at the Middlesex North recording counter.  While it's comforting to know that people have not been seriously inconvenienced by all of this, we were geared up to absorb an increase in business that otherwise would have gone closer to Boston.  On another note, the 2004 Lowell Folk Festival was a great success despite the rainy start on Saturday.  The following link shows a few pictures of festival activities.  Folk Festival pictures.  

With the arrival of DNC week we were expecting a dramatic increase in recordings at the South Satellite Office in Lowell. With media warnings of traffic nightmares for commuters heading to Boston and its surrounding communities, the Satellite Office offers an easy alternative.  Surprisingly, the Satellite recorded more documents than normal, but not as many as we expected. The recording line never had more than two people waiting. And, as usual, our staff moved the line very quickly so no one waited more than ten minutes to complete their entire transaction. Interestingly, reports say that Middlesex South in Cambridge was relatively quiet. And rumor has it business was also off at the Registry of Probate. It seems that many people may be scheduling around the convention, either taking vacations, working at home or delaying recordings until next week. 
    But we have taken the advice of the Boy Scouts, "be prepared". The South Satellite is fully ready if there is a large increase in recordings. And don't forget, the hours of operation have also been extended until 4:00PM for the public’s convenience.

During the past few days, four different customers have contacted us by email or phone to express frustration over their inability to find their way from the first page of our website to our database.  Of course, the link is "Search Land Records" but these folks were all first-time registry users and "Search Land Records" didn't quite describe what they were trying to do.  Instead, they each clicked on the "Deed - how to get a copy of yours" link on the website.  Unfortunately, that only connected them to a rather stale Frequently Asked Questions page that was of no help.  Fortunately, they contacted us and we did what we should have done long ago, added some instructions on how to find documents on our website.  Even you experienced users might want to take a glance at this PDF document that you can reach by the link underneath "Search Land Records" or from "Deeds - Get a Copy . . ."  If you have any comments about this new document, please send them along.  I mention this episode for several reasons.  I want to thank those individuals who took the time to give us feedback about the website.  I believe their comments have caused us to improve the site.  And I use it as an example of how the website can allow for two-way communications between us and our users (although it doesn't take four - or three or even two - comments to get us to change something).  On another note, don't forget to visit the Lowell Folk Festival this weekend in downtown Lowell.  If you haven't checked it out before, you'll be very pleasantly surprised by what you see, hear, smell and taste.  I always enjoy overhearing festival-goers from out of town saying things like "I can't believe Lowell is this beautiful."  Check out the Festival's website at www.lowellfolkfestival.org.

This coming weekend is the Lowell Folk Festival - the largest free folk festival in the United States - six outdoor stages, three days of traditional music and dance, street parades, ethnic food of all types.  For more information, check out their website at www.lowellfolkfestival.org.  I hope to see you there.  Some more news from yesterday's ACS Users Group meeting: There's a growing trend among registry users to attach a variety of documents to the end of another document being recorded (attaching a death certificate to a deed, for example).  It seems that most registries will treat this "packet" as a single document and charge only the fee for the primary document.  In this case, however, nothing contained in the attached documents will be entered in the index.  If the customer wants the attached documents to also be indexed, they will be treated as separate documents and charged accordingly.  Another issue discussed was the presence of social security numbers on documents presented for recording.  Because everything is now on the Internet, including social security numbers on documents creates a risk of identify theft, so most registries will not record social security numbers (we ask the person recording the document to cross them out).  Of course, this rule doesn't apply to tax liens.  Apparently, the taxing authorities have concluded that people who don't pay their taxes on time don't need to have their social security numbers protected.  Finally, the registries have asked ACS for a better way to index property that resides in more than one community.  Right now, we use the town code "Multiple" for such properties, but if you try to search for such a property and limits the search to one or the other town names, you won't find anything because the town code is Multiple.  (That's why we advise people to use the minimum information possible when starting searches - you can always make it more restrictive if too many results are returned).  

The ACS Computer Users Group met today in Worcester.  This group consists of the registries that use the ACS Computer System, representatives from the Secretary of State's Office, and key personnel from ACS.  We discussed a range of topics which I'll write about in the coming days but for now, two things warrant mention.  The new search program that disregards spaces and punctuation (which will be a big benefit to registry users) will become active on August 1, both in the registries and on the Internet.  The other "new thing" is the ability to search on the Internet by document type, town, and date range.  This will allow Internet users, for example, to retrieve all deeds recorded in Lowell during June 2004 or all mortgages for Tewksbury for March 2003.  You can already do this at the registry, but because such searches tend to be large and consume a lot of computer power, they weren't allowed over the Internet.  Now they will be (with a limit of 1000 records per search).  We'll let you know when this feature becomes active.  The only bad news to emerge from today's meeting was that John Harvell, the man who has overseen the installation of the ACS computer system in Massachusetts from the beginning up until now has left ACS.  Back in June 2002, this registry and Harvell's ACS team were given the challenge of doing the first ACS installation in Massachusetts in an extremely short period of time.  We did it, but without John Harvell's intelligence, experience, determination and judgment, it never would have happened and we would not now be able to offer our users the quality of service that we provide.  Everyone here in Lowell will miss John and we all wish him well in his future endeavors. 

I just finished "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Joe Trippi.  It's an account of Howard Dean's presidential campaign (Trippi was his campaign manager) and how the Internet was used to propel Dean from an unknown former governor of a very small state to the front runner (for a time, at least) for the Democratic nomination for president.  I was anxious to read the book since it was the Dean campaign's use of the Internet, especially its Blog, that inspired me to create this Blog for the registry of deeds many months ago.  This book is not the standard post-campaign memoir, for Trippi spends as much time discussing the future of the Internet in politics, government and business as he does the Iowa caucuses.  Some of his advice: "If you aren't responding to customer emails, if you don't have a blog . . . then you're wasting your time on the Net."  So far, so good for the Lowell registry.  But Trippi goes on: "Build a community.  Get people involved.  This is not top-down, one-to-many anymore.  The Internet is side-to-side, up-and-down, many-to-many.  Use it that way.  It's the dialogue, stupid!"  Well, I guess we have some more work to do.  We're already discussing ways to get you, our customers, more involved in our website and, by extension, in how the registry operates.  If you have any suggestions, please send them along by email and please watch for future opportunities to participate in our dialogue.   

     The seventh original text of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden will be on display in the Thoreau Baker Farm in Lincoln, MA next week. Many regard Thoreau was one of America’s most ardent conservationists. He lived for two years in the woods around Walden Pond in Concord, MA. Thoreau shares these experiences in this famous book appropriately titled “Walden”. The book has become a classic and Thoreau an icon. I first read Walden while working a summer maintenance job for Middlesex County in 1970.
      I remember one day while digging a water trench, asking one of the supervisors “who is this Thoreau guy?
     “Well” he answered, “I guess the best way to describe him is he was one of the first hippies". Then he added "and you know that place in the woods where they say his cabin was? That is nothing but and old hot dog stand…now keep that shovel moving” (I don’t think this guy would have been in favor of the Community Preservation Act). 
     After reading Walden I became immediately intrigued with the author and his works. August 9 marks the 150 anniversary of the publication of the classic. The manuscript is available for viewing until September 13.

The Massachusetts Legislature is now considering Senate Bill 2386 ("An Act to Provide Remedies to Consumers For Clearing Title After Payoff of Mortgages").  This bill, proposed by the Real Estate Bar Association for Massachusetts (REBA) would address the ongoing problem of missing or incorrect mortgage discharges.  One of the major changes contemplated would be the prepayment of the recording fee for discharges.  After enactment, the recording fee for mortgages would rise from the current $175 to $250, however, when the mortgage was ultimately paid off, the resulting discharge would be recorded with no additional fee.  This legislation would also simplify and strengthen the current procedure that allows a mortgage to be discharged by an affidavit.  Today I joined several other Registers of Deeds in meeting with representatives of REBA to discuss the impact of this legislation on registry operations.  While the registers had some relatively minor suggestions, the overall bill should be viewed as very positive, consumer friendly legislation.  We'll try to keep you posted on the status of this bill as it works its way through the state house.

Despite our location 25 miles north of Boston, the impact of the Democratic National Convention (July 26 to July 30) will be felt here in Lowell. The Middlesex North Registry will be open and will conduct business as usual. The satellite recording office for Middlesex South will also be open although we will be extending the hours of operation slightly. The satellite office normally stops recording at 3 pm but that week, we will continue until 4 pm to accommodate the expected increase in business. Unfortunately, we still will be unable to accept Registered Land documents or plans for Middlesex South. We also will be opening a temporary office of the Corporations Division of the Secretary of State's office for that week. We'll provide additional information about the services that will be available. Although the Corporations addition will only be for that week, if it proves useful, perhaps we can make the case that it should be a permanent addition to our operations. As for Tuesday's trivia question (Where is the key to the Bastille located?) the answer is at Mount Vernon in Virginia. Lafayette presented the key to George Washington and it hangs over the doorway in our first President's home. Congratulations to Assistant Register Tony Accardi for correctly answering the question.

With the close of the first half of 2004 we have begun to compile recording statistics for the past decade. The totals below are a combination of registered and recorded land. The right column shows the change in the number of documents recorded from the previous year.

Middlesex North Registry of Deeds
Document Total Analysis 95-04

Year TOTAL % Change
1995 65719
1996 72861 11%
1997 76000 4%
1998 101138 33%
1999 96830 -4%
2000 77447 -20%
2001 105555 36%
2002 125298 19%
2003 158827 27%
2004 54507 -31%

2003 turned out to be the biggest year in the history of Middlesex North. Although, things have certainly changed. The first half of 2004 ended with a total of 54507 documents. If we continue at this pace we will end 2004 with an approximate total of 109,000. This represents a 31% decrease in recordings from last year. The most interesting fact regarding these statistics is the extreme fluctuation throughout the decade.

A major change to the way registry users search records on our computers will soon take effect. Unlike the current system, the new search program will disregard spaces and punctuation. With the current system, if you are searching for the "ABC Realty Trust" and type "ABC" with no spaces between the letters, but an attachment has been previously recorded that had the name "A B C Realty Trust" your search would not yield the attachment. The new system would find it. We've already tested the in-registry version of this system and will examine the Internet version soon. The whole thing should be implemented by the end of July. It will be a major improvement. Having recently returned from a trip to France, I can't let tomorrow (July 14) pass without wishing everyone a pleasant Bastille Day. For those unfamiliar with that phase of European history, the Bastille was an infamous jail in France that was attacked, captured and then dismantled during the 1789 Revolution. Now in Paris, there's only a simple monument in the midst of a traffic circle where the Bastille once stood. In a related trivia question, where is the key to the Bastille now on display? Email your answers to me by Thursday.

I hate to bore people with numbers, but it is the best way to provide an update of our registered land "back scanning" project. First some history: We began the project in March, 2004 scanning documents that were recorded in 1994. In a earlier project we had scanned reg land docs 1-12000. We knew this project was quite an undertaking. But we figured if business continued to decline we would have the manpower to complete it. Let me also mention that it is a very important project. I would assess that things have gone rather well so far. To date we have scanned close to 40,000 documents covering a seven year period (1987-1994). Some unforeseen events have caused a few delays. Now the math(I promise no square roots)...There still are over 100,000 documents to be scanned. We average about 12,000 per month. Let's see...100,000 divided by 12,000 equals 8.3(months that is). Of late, we have picked up the pace by having other registry employees do document preparation during their down-time. This has really helped. Now the scanners just, well scan. And they stay with it most of the day. Our hope is to finish this project by the end of the year(cross your fingers).

We've made some changes to the Registry website. The most significant one occurs when you click on the "Search Land Records" link. Now, a new browser window that contains the search screen opens. Conduct your research just as you always have, but when you're done, just close that window (click on the X in the upper right hand corner). The registry home page stays open in its original window. The reason we made this change is that the old link didn't work for many of our users - when they clicked on "Search Land Records" all they got was a blank screen. We think that problem's been resolved. The other changes are the addition of a monthly report showing foreclosures. Two features that we experimented with - a bulletin board and a chat room - did not seem to catch on, so we've temporarily pulled them off the website. That's a summary of the changes. We hope to add more features soon.

My thanks to Assistant Register Tony Accardi for maintaining the Blog (and, more importantly, the Registry of Deeds) during my just completed vacation. Tony will continue to post Blog entries on a regular basis, so don't despair. To my surprise, some readers have asked for a report on my trip, so here it is: My family traveled to France for 2+ weeks that began with seven days in a Paris apartment, a nice base for riding the Metro to all the monuments and museums. That was followed by a stay at a 1790 Normandy farmhouse that doubled as a bed and breakfast, highlighted by visits to the D-day invasion beaches and the American cemetery at Colleville. If there are anti-American sentiments, the French did a great job of disguising them, for we were treated wonderfully by everyone. Most folks seemed more interested in the Euro2004 soccer tournament than in foreign policy. Other observations - French bread is overrated, but their croissants alone justify the transatlantic flight; with gasoline costing nearly $5 per gallon, you understand why even their SUVs are smaller than the smallest of American cars; their supermarkets are much like ours, although you can't find paper cups, plates or towels - not only are they more into recycling than we are, they don't throw as much away in the first place. And the ATM card from your local bank produces Euros on the Boulevard St. Germain as easily as it does dollars on Merrimack Street. But enough of the travelog. It's nice to be back. Registry news will return tomorrow.

July 4th makes me reflect on the many men in the Merrimack Valley that were involved in the early history of our country. Captain John Trull of Tewksbury fired his musket from his bedroom window, warning citizens in Dracut that the British were marching to Concord. Captain John Harden of Wilmington marched a company of men to Concord to fight. Westford’s Col John Robinson led the assembled minuteman across the North Bridge on April 19, 1775. Copies of land records of these Patriots and their family’s can be found in old books in the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds. After Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, it was Boston’s John Adams that convinced the Colonies to accept it. Adams argued that while Congress sat in Virginia “discussing” freedom, Massachusetts Patriots had already begun “fighting” for it. It is truly exciting to think that within a twenty-five mile radius of this registry America began its fight for Freedom. A monument honoring Captain Trull sits across the street from my home in Tewksbury. He trained his minuteman in the field which is now part of my back yard. I love to brag about it. Sometimes I look out across that field in awe. This vast Nation began it’s fight for “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” right here in Massachusetts. And many of those that first raised arms to secure the liberties that Jefferson so eloquently articulated were from the Merrimack Valley. Records of other patriotic notables are here in Middlesex North also: Asa Parlin of Carlisle, John Minot of Chelmsford, Joseph Varnum of Dracut and William Thompson of Billerica. All these men were delegates to the Massachusetts State Convention to adopt the federal constitution in 1788.
Have a happy, safe July 4th. Can you tell it’s my favorite holiday?

Today, July 1 is the first anniversary of the opening of the Middlesex South Satellite Office in Lowell. The Satellite is a great success to say the least. One day the office took in over one thousand documents. The installation of the ACS computer system in Cambridge last fall gave the Satellite more flexibility and capabilities. We are now “scanning” as well as recording South documents here in Lowell. In a past blog entry, it was mentioned that we expect an increase in recordings at the Satellite Office during the Democratic Convention. The convention takes place the last week in July and will significantly increase the traffic around Greater Boston. Recently, we have had more phone inquiries regarding procedures at the South Satellite. These calls seem to indicate that this expectation is accurate. We expect the DNC will channel many users, especially new ones, to Lowell. As a reminder, the Satellite Office does not record “registered land” documents or “Plans”.

As mentioned before, June 30 is one of the busiest days of the year at the registry. So... as Polonius said to King Claudius(you remember...he was Hamlet's father/Uncle), "Since brevity is the soul of wit, I shall be brief"...The lights shall not burn, nor the doors be unlatched on the 5th day of July at fond registry of deeds... In other words... we are closed on Monday. I guess that's brief enough even for Shakespeare.

Yesterday we set up a recording terminal in our Customer Service Department. The terminal was formerly being used by the Middlesex South Pilot Office to produce Excise Stamps. Since the installation of the ACS system in Cambridge, the Pilot Office’s recording terminals are all capable of producing their own stamps. The new Customer Service terminal will be used to record Homesteads and Mortgage Discharges for walk in customers. Our objective is to make things easier and less confusing for those who are unfamiliar with the registry. This is the present procedure: a person comes to our Customer Service Department and fills out a Homestead form. We then send them to the Recording Counter to complete the transaction. Sounds simple…Well I’ll bet those of you who regularly frequent the registry have seen different. I remember the “registry” confusion I experienced before becoming an employee. I’ll never forget the feeling I had the first time I stared down the barrel of a full loaded recording terminal. I have been here for almost ten years now and still get a little nervous when I get near one. It’s true. If you don’t know the registry it “is” very intimidating. Hopefully, this new Customer Service terminal will eliminate this problem. It will allow, “one stop shopping” for the average consumer. In addition it can be used on busy days as an express terminal. This would minimize the wait for a person with only one document.

The relative quiet we have recently seen at the registry of deeds is about to change. I think next week will be very busy. June 30th, which is the last day of the fiscal year, is one of our busiest days(let's see that's Wednesday). And the first business day of "every month" is always busy(Thursday). And let's not forget that the 4th of July falls on a Sunday this year, which means we will be closed on Monday, July 5th. A long weekend...perfect for moving...that means July 2 will be hopping(Friday). Wednesday, Thursday, Friday...busy, busy, busy...sounds like a good week for my air cushioned shoes. I'm ready for it. My father used to tell me..."hard work is good for you"...easy for him to say he retired at age 50.
Have a great weekend!

The Community Preservation Act, more commonly known as CPA, was signed into law in September 2000. The law authorizes communities to establish a CPA fund by applying a surcharge to their local property tax. The revenue collected by the community is matched by the state. The state's funds come from a $20.00 surcharge paid on most documents filed at the Registry of Deeds. CPA funds can only be used for Historic Preservation, Affordable Housing and to purchase Open Space. Even four years after its enactment, some communities are just now beginning to consider it. Currently, 65 of Massachusetts' 351 communities has opted to participate in CPA. There are nine additional communities scheduled to vote on CPA in 2004, including Concord and Groton in our area. Tewksbury officials have also begun to discuss whether they should bring the option to voters. This year's refinancing slow down has caused a sharp reduction in the number of documents being recorded at the registry of deeds, which obviously affects the registry's CPA contribution. In spite of the slow down, if our recording pace for the second half of 2004 matches the first, we will record 30% more documents than in 2000, the year the Community Preservation Act was signed into law.

The Registry of Deeds can be an interesting and helpful place for the average person. Some people are interested in researching the history of their home. Others simply want to know the sale prices of property in their neighborhood. Most of this can be done on our website (lowelldeeds.com). Still, some people just prefer to come in. Our Customer Service Department has been very successful in directing people to find what they need. I would guess that between phone calls and walk-ins we service approximately one hundred inquiries a day. This volume is very helpful. This one on one contact provides information that is used to help make us a "user friendly" registry. But, I am rambling. The point is...if you have a question... call, or if you have a suggestion... make it. We will listen.

On Wednesday June 23, a group of some twenty women are coming to the Superior Courthouse. Their visit is part of a program called "Learning in Retirement". I will give them a tour of the building with special attention paid to the Daniel WebsterCourt Room on the second floor. I have also retrieved from the basement some old items for display. These semi-antiques were used by registry employees in the past to record documents (no, not the Wang computer system). My favorite is a bottle of "Recording Ink" certified by the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Edward J Cronin, in 1899. Entries made in the registry's indexes could only be made using this "certified ink". Printed on the bottle's label is the following: "manufactured and furnished under the provisions of Chp 66. sec 2 of the General Laws." I was pretty excited when I discovered it a few years ago. Hopefully, my guests will share my excitement. I will keep you informed.

Last night's "Chronicle" TV show was very interesting. It focused on the real estate market in Massachusetts.
Our registry's statistics confirm what was reported regarding pricing. Very simply, home prices continue to rise. Interestingly, Lowell's prices are increasing as young people find the city more affordable than its surrounding suburban communities. Simultaneously, the suburbs are running out of land forcing housing prices even higher in those communities. Of course, the question becomes where will it end? I remember when I bought my first house. My father cautioned me, "are you sure you are not overpaying for this house?" Dad I replied, "it has 10 rooms, 2.5 baths, a fireplace and is on a cul-de-sac." "I don't know", he answered, "$60,000 sounds like highway robbery?"

Last week I asked blog readers to offer suggestions on how to improve our website. One respondent urged us to add an easy-to-follow section that would take the first time user through a trip to the registry of deeds. It was an excellent suggestion. We're already working on implementing it. Working at the registry everyday, dealing primarily with lawyers and title examiners who use the registry every day, we run the risk of forgetting what a confusing place the Registry of Deeds can be for the casual user who visits once or twice in a lifetime. The website is a perfect place to put such an orientation. Thanks for the suggestions.

As a service to homeowners we have begun mailing certified copies of their recently recorded deeds to them. Included with the deed is a letter directing homeowners to our website (www.lowelldeeds.com) if they wish to find other documents related to their property. The website also contains information on the Declaration of Homestead as well as a printable form. This project will be handled by our Customer Service Department. Of course, regardless of recording date, if anyone needs a copy of their own deed, we will be more than happy to mail it to them. Simply call our Customer Service department (978-322-9000).

The Registry of Deeds will be open on Friday, June 11. Unfortunately, the various tributes to President Reagan have caused much confusion for registry users. Friday is a Federal holiday (post offices are closed and there is no mail delivery) and Governor Romney has decreed that state offices under the Executive Branch will be closed as well. But the registry falls within the Secretary of State's office and since Secretary Galvin (like the state treasurer and attorney general) holds an independent elected office created by the state constitution, the governor's decrees do not control registry operations. Of course, if the Trial Court closes all courts - which is NOT the case on Friday - the public will not have access to the building that houses the Registry of Deeds so we would have to close, too. Although no one's asked, next Thursday (June 17) is Bunker Hill Day. We are open that day. Customers are also asking us questions about Monday, July 5, which is when the Fourth of July is officially celebrated. We WILL be closed on July 5. So to repeat, we are open on Friday, June 11 (Day of Mourning for Ronald Reagan), open on Thursday June 17 (Bunker Hill Day), but closed on Monday July 5 (Fourth of July).

We're about to make some modifications to our webpage. Some of the features like the Bulletin Board don't seem to have caught on right now. The chat room worked OK with regularly scheduled sessions on Friday afternoons, but then we had a couple of consecutive very busy Fridays and weren't able to host the chats. We will keep the chat room as an available option, but we're going to rethink how to use it. The new look of the website is still in the design stage, but if any blog readers have suggestions on how to improve the website, please send me an email with your suggestions.

We've started to receive a number of phone calls asking if the Registry will remain open on Friday even though that day has been declared a national day of mourning in honor of President Reagan. We have received an answer from the Secretary of State's office - all state registries will remain open all day on Friday, June 11 despite the sad occasion. The flags at the courthouse have already been lowered to half staff.

We're starting to get regular requests for "lists of foreclosures in progress." We take that to mean a collection of Orders of Notice filed during a particular time period. As most of you know, a lender must get the court's permission to proceed with the foreclosure. Part of that court procedure involves the issuance of an Order of Notice, a copy of which gets recorded at the registry. (Believe it or not, the only issue for the court is whether the debtor is serving in the military and therefore entitled to additional protection). Just because an Order of Notice gets recorded, there's no guarantee that the foreclosure will follow. The debtor may sell the property or find some other way to bring the loan current or pay it off. We do provide these types of reports. They must be picked up at the registry and are not available online (yet). The charge is $1 per page. About six entries appear on each page. We are working on a way to post these reports on our website, much like we do with our monthly sales data.

Over the past few months, a number of online registry users have reported difficulty reaching the "search records" portion of our website using the link from the main webpage (the link says "Search Land Records"). When these users click on that link, they move to a blank screen, never reaching the portion of the site that allows you to search our database. When these same users go to www.masslandrecords.com, however, they are able to load the Middlesex North search screen and access our database. Since most people don't experience this problem, I assume it's related to the type of browser that the individual user has on his computer. Still, several people each day report this problem, so it's not a minor issue. I've reported it to our computer company, but it seems that they can barely keep the website operational regardless of the route one takes to reach it, so I'm not optimistic that they'll be of much help with this one. If anyone has any theories on what might be causing this, please let me know.

An employee of the Registry recently observed that the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Boston during the last week in July will present a great opportunity for the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds to attract new users to our Middlesex South Satellite Office. The convention is expected to create a traffic nightmare, especially for those heading towards the greater Boston area (especially Cambridge). If registry users normally bound for Cambridge know that they can avoid convention-related traffic hassles by coming to Lowell, they undoubtedly will. I expect we will heavily promote the availability of the satellite office and have extra staff available to handle the increase in business. Perhaps we'll get some promotional literature about Lowell from the Chamber of Commerce. If people come to Lowell to record documents, maybe they'll stick around for a while. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please send me an email.

With the end of the month upon us, we expect the next few days to be busy at the registry. Otherwise, the number of documents being recorded continues to be well below last year's historically high volume. We are using this lull in business to add to the information already on our computers. For example, we have been scanning registered land documents that were only available on microfilm. We are also finalizing what we call the "index image viewing" program which takes the microfilm of our pre-1976 indexes (which are not on the computer) and scans the index into the computer system. Although you will not be able to do a computerized name search, you will be able to flip through the pages of the index on the computer, just as you now do with the actual book. We are also scrutinizing our current computer index, looking for entries that do not comply with our indexing standards. Any corrections we make are dated and recorded in case that ever becomes an issue in the future.

We continue testing the electronic recording system. This system has only been in operation in other states for less than a year and much of its design was heavily influenced by large banks and title companies in other parts of the country. Consequently, the customer interface is a bit foreign to the typical Massachusetts conveyancer. Recording a residential sale - an MLC, deed, mortgage, assignment and homestead - can be done, but it's a bit tricky. That's the type of transaction we're still looking at, trying to make it easier to use. In the meantime, filing individual mortgages, assignments or discharges couldn't be easier, so it looks like we might transition to live recording in phases, inviting national banks and mortgage companies that send most of their documents through the mail to use the electronic recording system first. We hope to start that, at least, soon after the start of the fiscal year on July 1.

Today's newspapers carried stories about the recent plunge in the number of mortgage applications. While interest rates have risen to only about 6.2% (a very low rate if put in the context of the past several decades), that increase has caused new mortgage applications to drop by two-thirds. Economists predict that this will cause a slight slow down in home sales and will begin to depress the value of real estate. The rationale here is that, the lower the interest rate, the more the buyer can afford to pay for a new house.

The ACS Users' Group met in Lowell today and was introduced to the ACS electronic recording system. The registry half of the system works very well. With just a couple of clicks, an electronically submitted document is fully recorded. This process completely eliminates data entry at the cashiering counter, handling checks or cash, and scanning. What else is left? Not much. Just verification and that's really done by the registry clerk at the recording counter. All the registers agreed that the half of the system that will be used by the customers - the "submitter interface" as we call it - needs some more work to make it "Massachusetts' friendly." But I suppose that you, our customers will be better judges of what you are willing to use or not use, so please contact me for to arrange a demonstration of the capabilities of this new system.

The five registries that use the ACS computer system (Lowell, Cambridge, Worcester, Greenfield and Northampton) also form the ACS Users' Group. We meet periodically - usually every six to eight weeks. Our biggest accomplishment thus far is agreeing to a standard set of document codes. Lowell switched to the new codes last month. The Users' Group will meet at the Middlesex North Registry tomorrow with the main topic being electronic recording. We've been using the electronic recording system in a test environment for three weeks now and have a pretty good feel for how it is designed to operate. The other registers will get their first look at the system tomorrow and will have an opportunity to offer their input. Feedback from the meeting will be the topic for tomorrow's blog entry, so if you're interested in electronic recording, check back on Wednesday evening.

There's an interesting amendment to this year's state budget. If enacted, it would specifically authorize the use of "electronic books" (aka computers with imaging systems) in place of traditional paper-based books. The same would be true for indexes. In Lowell, we stopped printing paper-based record books back in November 2001 when the tardily passed state budget took an enormous and unexpected chunk out of our operating funds. And although Chapter 36 of the General Laws does talk about reproducing recorded documents in books, I have considered the law to be flexible enough to encompass technological advances, so having document images available on computers did, in my view, comply with the existing statute. Nevertheless, this proposed legislation is welcome - I wonder if it will apply to Registered Land? Wouldn't that be a revolutionary development?

We're meeting with the Department of Revenue again tomorrow to continue our discussions about statewide recording of all DOR liens - child support, medical assistance, and tax. The easiest way to do this would be through an electronic transfer of data from the DOR to each registry. That data could be organized in a way that would match our computerized index fields, so there wouldn't have to be any data entry at the registry. And the entry in the index would be it - there'd be no corresponding document recorded. This is a radical departure from the way registries have worked for the past 350 years, so it will require a lot of thought of discussion before any serious effort is made to implement it.

We continue to look closely at the procedures that will be used with electronic recording. The portion of the proposed system that operates within the registry seems to work very well, allowing data, images and financial information to flow directly into our database along with documents recorded in the traditional way. This system will eliminate about 90% of the work done at the registry on each document recorded electronically. Besides these operational concerns, we must scrutinize the legal implications. We're confident that the Uniform Electronic Transaction Act allows electronic recording, but there will still be many questions. If anyone has any questions or concerns about legal issues related to electronic recording, please send them to me by email so we can begin addressing them now.

This past Saturday (May 8) fifty-five visitors toured the Registry of Deeds and the Superior Courthouse as part of "Doors Open Lowell," part of the city's celebration of National Preservation Week. Our guests enjoyed seeing the historic Daniel Webster courtroom and learning how the courthouse is actually two buildings, one built in 1848, the other in 1898. The older building was actually constructed right along Gorham Street, exactly where the new building sits. When it came time to expand, the county commissioners decided to move the old building backwards to its present location. Workers dug under the foundation and used heavy wooden beams and 800 jacks to support the weight of the three story brick structure. Then, using other jacks positioned perpendicular to the side of the excavation, they pushed the building sixty feet at the rate of an inch an hour. A contemporary newspaper account reported that progress was so slow and steady that "work continued uninterrupted as the building was moved." (I don't suppose that would happen today). This and other interesting stories about the Registry of Deeds, the courthouse and the city of Lowell and surrounding towns were all documented for the Open House. In the coming weeks, we hope to convert this material to pages on our website so it will be available to a broader audience.

A regular blog reader sent me an email today asking why Registered Land never seemed to be a topic. Unfortunately, I don't have a very good answer. Two factors that contribute to this lack of attention are the relatively small amount of property that is in the Registered Land system (about 10% of our recordings). The other is that Registered Land is closely controlled by the Land Court in Boston and the Land Court is an institution that embraces tradition and the tried and true way of doing things. So where Recorded Land has made maximum use of the latest technology to streamline the recording process, the Land Court has failed to seize the opportunity to similarly streamline the Registered Land system. We have made a few changes locally (moving more records to the computers; changing the format of the Certificate Books), but our efforts have only been peripheral. There may be a good reason why certain fundamental changes have not yet been made in the Registered Land system, but as far as I can tell, no one at the Land Court is considering the type of long range, fundamental changes that are possible today. Instead, the system continues on as it has existed with no evidence that it is ready to change. During the coming week, I'll try to describe some of my ideas about Registered Land.

It looks like the issue of "multiple documents" is resurfacing. To refresh everyone's memory (we discussed this several weeks ago), a multiple document is a single piece of paper that does more than one thing. For example, if a trustee is resigning and a new trustee is appointed and accepts the appointment, a document that has "Resignation of Trustee" on the top half and "Acceptance of New Trustee" on the bottom half is often recorded. Some registries will index this as if it's two separate documents, once as a RESIGNATION and again as an ACCEPTANCE. That piece of paper will only get one instrument number, but it will show up twice in the index, once for each document type. Because it's indexed as if it's two separate documents, the fee for two separate documents is also assessed. In Lowell, we tend to index documents only once if at all possible, thereby keeping down the recording fees. Most registries, particularly the larger ones, are more aggressive in designating documents as multiples. Now, it looks like the Secretary of State's Office, in the interests of uniformity, will mandate that all state registries, at least, charge the greater amount for these types of documents. We'll keep you posted on this issue. If you have any questions or comments, please send them along by email.

Someone from an electronic recording company called SimpliFile visited the registry today. Simplifile is based in Utah but has developed a relationship here in Massachusetts with the Hampden County Registry of Deeds in Springfield. In Lowell, we continue to work on electronic recording with ACS, the company that provides our registry computers and software. Electronic recording is still in its infancy and there are a number of companies that provide this service. We want to make certain that the various products all work together. So we in the registry aren't confronted with multiple systems - that would just cause confusion and recording problems. There are really two components to electronic recording. To simplify things, we'll call them the front end and the back end. The front end is what the submitter uses to create an electronic document and transmit it to the gateway of the registry. The back end is the part within the registry - from that gatekeeper to the recording terminal. The registry only wants one company providing its back end, but a potentially infinite number of companies can provide the front end to the customers, so long as everything works together. It's a little like your telephone service. You might have Verizon and I have AT&T, but when we dial our phones, it doesn't matter. We can still talk to each other.

This Saturday the city of Lowell celebrates Historic Preservation Week with a program called "Doors Open Lowell." More than thirty buildings, including the Registry of Deeds, will be open to the public on Saturday, May 8 from 9 a.m. to noon. At the registry, we will set up an exhibit showing the history of the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds, of the Superior Courthouse, and of other historic events in the area. We will also conduct tours of the building including the Daniel Webster courtroom. Visitors will be able to use registry computers to print copies of their deeds and Declaration of Homestead forms will be available. We hope to create a virtual tour of the building and post it on the website in case you're not able to make it on Saturday.